Americans’ beliefs about climate change were recently surveyed by the Pew Research Center, and the results were made public a few days ago. Pew pollsters found that a combined 51% of Americans agree that (a) there is no clear evidence the Earth is warming, or (b) natural factors are the main cause of climate changes. Therefore, just 48% of Americans believe the Earth is getting warmer, and this warming is mostly caused by humans. This belief percentage has essentially remained unchanged for the last 10 years, or since the survey was first conducted in 2006.

One key question in the survey pertained to Americans’ perception of the scientific “consensus”. The Pew Research Center found that just 27% of Americans believe that “almost all” climate scientists maintain the belief that changes in climate are mostly caused by humans.

Of course, the presupposition underpinning this opinion question is the claim that upwards of 97% climate scientists — translated into “almost all” for the Pew survey — believe that climate changes since the mid-20th century have been mostly (i.e., more than 50%) caused by humans. This oft-cited 97% figure was derived from a subjective abstract-counting exercise conducted by “Skeptical Science” blogger John Cook and colleagues (Cook et al., 2013, “Quantifying the Consensus…”). Selected abstracts from 11,944 scientific papers published between 1991 and 2011 were used for the sample size, and of those papers just 65 (0.5% of the 11,944) were classified by Cook and his fellow raters as endorsing the specified Category 1 position that “Explicitly states that humans are the primary cause of recent global warming” (Legates et al., 2013). This wouldn’t do, of course. So, to ultimately reach the 97% endorsement percentage the Cook team had set out to obtain in the first place, they intentionally combined the (65) Category 1 quantified “consensus” statement papers with the (934) Category 2 and (2,933) Category 3 endorsement papers that only needed to state (2) or just imply (3) that humans are a cause of climate changes. These Category 2 and 3 papers did not quantify the contribution or indicate humans are a primary (>50%) cause of climate change, but they were nonetheless combined with Category 1 papers anyway.

Of course, nearly all scientists would agree that a human contribution greater than 0% exists, or that humans can be a cause — however modest — of some degree of climate change. So by combining the very high endorsement rates from Categories 2 and 3 (that even most skeptics acknowledge, as they agree humans contribute to climate change to some degree) with the negligibly small endorsement rates for Category 1 (just 65 papers), and by excluding many hundreds of papers from consideration that were published by scientists questioning the theory, Cook et al. (2013) were ultimately able to get away with proclaiming that 97% of scientists believe that climate changes since 1950 have mostly been caused by humans.

But as the evidence from the Pew survey indicates, despite their best efforts, John Cook and cohorts have not been able to convince the general public that subjective abstract-counting exercises are a sound or scientific means to gauge “consensus.” As mentioned, only 27% of Americans believe that “almost all” (i.e., 97%) climate scientists maintain the belief that humans are the primary cause of changes in the climate system. Not only that, just 28% Americans agree that climate scientists even understand (“very well”) what factors cause climate changes.

And Americans may be right. According to analysis found in the peer-reviewed scientific literature (Prokopy et al., 2015, Lefsrud and Meyer, 2012, Stenhouse et al., 2016), surveys of professional climatologists, engineers, geologists, and agronomists indicate that the percentage of these scientists who believe that changes in the climate system are primarily caused by humans falls abysmally short of the claimed 97%. In fact, these studies reveal that only 53% of climatologists and meteorologists, 36% of professional engineers and geoscientists, and 19% of agronomists believe that changes in the climate system are mostly human-caused.

53% Of Climatologists Believe, 19% Of Agronomists Believe

In a survey of Midwest-based climatologists and agronomists (here called “extension educators” who have “at least a Masters degree” in agronomic sciences), just 53% of climatologists and 19.2% of agronomists believe that changes in the climate system are primarily caused by humans.

“In 2012, a total of 22 state and extension climatologists were selected through a purposive sample to represent main outlets of publicly available and location-specific climate information in the region. … About 53% attributed climate change primarily to human activities.”

“Extension educators are a unique set of agricultural advisors who serve to connect and translate research from universities to farmers in order to decrease risk to the farm enterprise and increase productive capacity and resilience. Typically, Extension educators have at least a Masters degree and are trained in agronomic sciences, which may not include climate sciences. … [O]ver 19% attribut[e] climate change primarily to human activities.”

36% Of Engineers, Geoscientists Believe

Among professional engineers and geoscientists trained in the physical sciences, only 36% are believers in the “consensus” position that humans are the “main or central” cause of changes in the climate system.

53% Of Professional Meteorologists Believe

Conflict about Climate Change at the American Meteorological Society: Meteorologists’ Views on a Scientific and Organizational Controversy

“A web-based survey was sent to all professional (i.e. non-student) members of the AMS in December 2011. … Members who said the global warming of the last 150 years was mostly caused by human activity (53% of full sample). … Members who are convinced of largely human-caused climate change expressed that debate over global warming sends an unclear message to the public. Conversely, members who are unconvinced of human-caused climate change often felt that their peers were closed-minded, and were suppressing unpopular views.”

Ninety-Seven Percent Bunk

To summarize, the American public is about as likely to believe that climate changes are mostly caused by humans as are meteorologists and climatologists (48% vs. 53%, respectively). And Americans in general are much more likely to believe that humans are the primary cause of climate changes as professionals trained in the physical sciences: 48% of U.S. citizens are believers, whereas ~20-35% of professionals with physical science degrees (engineers, Earth scientists, agronomists) are believers.

To put it non-delicately, the claim that “almost all” scientists (i.e., 97%) believe that most changes in the climate system are caused by humans is … bunk.

The largest proportion of engineers are Civil engineers (probably over 60%) who have no education or experience in thermodynamics, or heat transfer. They have practically no learning in chemistry and little in mathematics. It is suggested that they would make up the large majority of engineers who think man had some affect on climate changes. Electrical and systems engineers also have little knowledge or experience with thermodynamics, heat transfer, chemistry, or fluid dynamics but have a large skill in mathematics. It is suggested that a lessor proportion than Civil engineers would support human influence. Mechanical engineers do have some qualifications in thermodynamics and heat transfer but very little in Chemistry. It is suggested the proportion that supports human influence would be small. Chemical engineers have more qualifications and experience (eg thermodynamics, heat and mass transfer, fluid dynamics, reaction kinetic, mathematics, dimensional analysis, statistics, instrumentation and control etc) than anyone else in world to be able to assess atmospheric changes. From my knowledge of chemical engineers the proportion that would support that humans have some influence over climate changes would be close to zero.

“Civil engineers … have no education or experience in thermodynamics, or heat transfer.”

Thermodynamics and heat transfer are taught in basic physical science courses, and all professional engineers are quite extensively trained in these rudimentary aspects of physical science.

“They have practically no learning in chemistry and little in mathematics.”

This is quite simply false. As someone who is very familiar with the required courses for engineering students, and that highly advanced math and chemistry courses are requisites for obtaining a degree in any engineering field, I’d invite you to substantiate your claims that engineering students have “no education” in thermodynamics, heat transfer, chemistry, or mathematics.

How absurd! This study is far more scientific than the fake 97% study that you warmists love to site. In that study, only scientists likely to agree were even polled.

Regarding Engineers — I think they understand that it is impossible to come up with a predictive model about a very complex and chaotic system and then declare that model ‘settled science’. Such a dogmatic faith-based methodology flies in the face of basic predictive statistics. Anyone who has taken introductory statistics knows that the warmist claims of ‘settled science’ are only a perversion of the statistical method.

When a Chem Eng comes up with a process, who do you think designs the reactor or distillation apparatus? Without Civil and Mechanical Engineers to design the facilities and reactors, you will never scale up your bench model to an industrial level.

Yonason, I did say that Mechanical Engineers studied and have experience in heat transfer (see the chapter in Marks Mechanical Engineering handbook) but in my day they with all engineers except chemicals did little chemistry (chemical engineers did 3 years of all aspects of Chemistry upto Science degree level). They had a watered down course in 1st year about equivalent to advanced high (2ndry) school. I have given talks to various groups of engineers and even interviewed some for engineering registration. I found that some top civil engineers know absolutely nothing about the properties of materials such as cement and steel. No civil engineer I have come across was able to tell me what properties distinguished white cement from ordinary Portland cement beside the color. Some consulting civil engineers can not properly specify concrete because they do not understand statistics and the cement & concrete properties (few understand sulphate resistance, alkali-aggregate reactions).
My point above was that the 36% called engineers in the survey were largely civil engineers who have no interest or knowledge about atmospheric conditions and if they were employed by government (including local government of towns and councils) would likely to go along with the political consensus. I have great respect for mining engineers who with some knowledge of geology are unlikely to support climate scams. Certainly no mining engineer or geologist I have met supports the scam. (Btw I have done some geology)
A final point not all engineers are the same (wasn’t there an ad. saying oils ain’t oils?)

“I found that some top civil engineers know absolutely nothing about the properties of materials such as cement and steel” – Cementafrient

OUCH!

Still, my experience with them, at least at the undergrad level, was that that they were exposed to a lot more math and physics than you give them credit for.

“Btw I have done some geology”

If you learned it well, you have my respect. I remember wanting to take it, until I saw what some friends were going through in the intro course. Hard material. (pun only slightly not intended.)

Years ago there were problems in scale up, as this video that was shown in our physics class on “waves and vibrations” illustrates.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5QNV3So7GM
But I think even physicists wouldn’t have seen that one coming. Fortunately, they now what to do to prevent a repeat (I hope).

You are simply uninformed. I am a Registered Civil Engineer (Geotechnical) with a Masters Degree. As an undergraduate, ALL engineer majors were required to take Thermodynamics. In addition, ALL engineers were required to take two years of calculus/differential equations and one year of physics. I also took one year of chemistry and I think most engineers do the same. In addition I took courses in physical geology, geomorphology, engineering geology, and remote sensing.

I would say that engineers are not taught to think in terms of chaotic systems. Instead the training is about finding regions where linear behaviour can be used as an approximation for a complex system. Finite element analysis is an example of this.

Given this background, a fair proportion may well take the word of climate scientists who claim to have accurately modelled all the characteristics of the atmosphere, particularly if they are not interested in the climate debate or if they have green leanings.

Most warmist engineers I talked to simply have blind trust in other branches of academia. They are honest and competent people and automatically assume that the climate modelers are
a) honest.
b) competent.

I’ll admit I was slightly warmist for a while due to inattention – it seemed plausible but not worrying. It took Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” to make me examine the CAGW arguments at the basic levels since I could not bring myself to admit that Al Gore could achieve anything of real merit.

Since then, I can only marvel at the gullibility of the masses in accepting the BS from those with vested interests in promoting CAGW and their “cures”.

Warmist engineers are more likely busy with things they are immediately concerned about than the idea of AGW. Alarmist engineers, yes, they are high-functioning morons and I know a few – they also tend to be “concerned” about other matters and often say “they” should do this and that.

““Skeptical assessments of research methods and conclusions are an important and necessary component of scientific progress. However, certain aspects in the dismissive discourses about climate change suggest that ‘denial’ (or ‘pseudo-skepticism’) is a more appropriate term for the phenomenon than ‘skepticism’.”

What is the climate “truth” that is being “denied” when calling those who are skeptical “climate deniers” because they’ve concluded that the human role in climate changes are small or not scientifically verifiable or detectable compared to natural variability?

For example, in this paper, the scientists report that “a large fraction” of changes in sea surface temperatures and ozone are a “consequence of natural variability and not a response of the climate system to anthropogenic forcings.” Would drawing such a conclusion make these scientists “deniers”? If so, we have a lot of “denier” scientists publishing papers in scientific journals.

Garfinkel et al., 2015http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2015GL066942/abstract
“Correct representation of the SSTs changes is important for the Northern Hemisphere, while correct representation of stratospheric ozone changes is important for the Southern Hemisphere. The ensemble-mean trend (which captures only the forced response) is nearly always much weaker than trends in reanalyses. This suggests that a large fraction of the recently observed changes [SSTs, ozone] may, in fact, be a consequence of natural variability and not a response of the climate system to anthropogenic forcings.”

“Climate change denial has been found to correlate with sociopolitical ideology.”

1. There is no “climate change denial.” Climate changes. The “denial” is that humans have any significant impact on it, because we don’t.

2a. The only correlation “with sociopolitical ideology” is in not wanting precious resources squandered on stupid schemes that benefit scoundrels, and harm everyone else. And our “denial” isn’t motivated by politics, but the politics by our desire not to be scammed.

I thought the farmers response to the Prokopy survey was interesting. These are folks who live with the changing climate, have commonsense about the weather, and, in today’s world,are often college educated in fields relevant to agriculture. It was a large sample with low response(likely disinterested) and a lower positive response than any of the others.

Lefsrud and Meyer get pretty annoyed at misrepresentation of their study. How they responded to a James Taylor misrepresentation of their study:
” the majority believes that humans do have their hands in climate change, even if many of them believe that humans are not the only cause.”

Let us do the math
Comply with Kyoto 36%
Fatalists 17%
Regulation activists 5%
Total 58% see the human influence in climate change.
And these are geologists and geophysicists the Albert oil patch.

Or how about the human influence on the greenhouse effect? According to scientists, the substantial growth in CO2 emissions since 1992 has exerted practically no influence on the greenhouse effect changes….

Or perhaps you can explain why scientists cannot seem to locate Mann-like hockey sticks for the last few hundred years of human “influence” on temperatures that could be differentiated from natural variability….

Finally, Jack, perhaps you can explain where in the scientific literature there is a scientific experiment that confirms raising or lowering CO2 concentrations over bodies of water causes heat changes in that water…

Jack, only 65 out of 11,944 papers published between 1991-2011 endorsed the quantified position that global warming since 1950 has been *primarily* caused by humans according to John Cook and colleagues themselves in Cook et al., 2013. That’s a “consensus” endorsement for about 0.5% of the papers selected. The rest just agreed that humans can/do contribute to climate changes at all, or at some level above 0%. In other words, papers like these 4 below would technically qualify as endorsements for Cook et al. (2013) because they acknowledge that increasing CO2 concentrations has at least *some* effect on climate, even if it’s stated there is “practically no effect” or the effect is “insignificant” or a few hundredths of a degree with doubling…because none of these papers conclude that CO2 has *zero* effect at all.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1134%2FS1019331613030015
“The author associates the recently observed climate warming and carbon dioxide concentration growth in the lower atmospheric layers with variations of solar-geomagnetic activity in global cloud formation and the significant decrease in the role of forests in carbon dioxide accumulation in the process of photosynthesis. The contribution of the greenhouse effect of carbon-containing gases to global warming turns out to be insignificant.”

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00254-006-0261-x
“The current global warming is most likely a combined effect of increased solar and tectonic activities and cannot be attributed to the increased anthropogenic impact on the atmosphere. Humans may be responsible for less than 0.01 C (of approximately 0.56C (1F) total average atmospheric heating during the last century) (Khilyuk and Chilingar 2003, 2004). … Any attempts to mitigate undesirable climatic changes using restrictive regulations are condemned to failure, because the global natural forces are at least 4–5 orders of magnitude greater than available human controls.”

James Powell? Can you provide the citation to the peer-reviewed scientific paper that contains his “findings”? And can you divulge the criteria he is using to classify papers? Or are you just taking his word for it without critical review? Because last I checked, all he’s done is characterize those papers (and articles and op-ed pieces and blog essays) that indicate humans can affect atmospheric conditions with their CO2 emissions *at all* as an endorsement of the position that changes climate parameters are *primarily* caused by humans. You do understand that there is a colossal difference between claiming humans are the *primary* cause of climate changes and claiming that humans can contribute to climate change, but their contribution is modest or insignificant? Because the latter is what most skeptics agree with.

Finally, please cite the scientific experiment that uses observational evidence to confirm that increasing or decreasing the atmospheric CO2 concentration in increments of parts per million (0.000001) above a body of water is the dominant/exclusive cause of heat content changes in that body of water. Or perhaps you can answer the question, Jack. If we were to lower CO2 concentrations by 10 ppm (-0.00001) over a body of water, how much heat will be lost in that body of water and at what depths? What are the scientific measurements? Again, please cite the scientific experiment verifying your results. Perhaps James Powell might know how to access this information.

Jack, please cite the paper and peer-reviewed scientific journal where James Powell’s “findings” are found.

John Cook et al. (2013) acknowledged that only 65 papers out of 11,944 endorsed the position that climate changes are *primarily* caused by humans. That’s an endorsement rate of 0.5%. The rest of the papers they classified as “endorsing” only acknowledged that humans can and do contribute to climate changes *at all* (above 0%), but did not claim that humans are the *primary* cause. You do understand that there is a colossal difference between saying that humans contribute, but only modestly, and saying that climate changes are *mostly* caused by humans, right?

For example, in the following papers, the authors do not say that humans contribute zero to climate changes. They do say, however, that the human contribution is “insignificant” or that humans have almost “no effect” or that the consequences of CO2 doubling is only hundredths of a degree. Technically speaking, then, these papers could qualify as endorsements in Cook’s paper because they acknowledge anthropogenic CO2 has an effect on climate that is above 0%.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00254-006-0261-x
“The current global warming is most likely a combined effect of increased solar and tectonic activities and cannot be attributed to the increased anthropogenic impact on the atmosphere. Humans may be responsible for less than 0.01 C (of approximately 0.56C (1F) total average atmospheric heating during the last century).”

Finally, do you know the reason why the Australian Geological Society dumped their climate change statement a few years ago? Because a majority of their thousands of members didn’t agree that most climate changes are human-caused. Just because an academy or society has a climate change statement that adheres to the dogma doesn’t necessarily mean that most members agree with it. You knew that, right?

Powell’s information is bad because it assumes absolute rejection is the only way that AGW consensus can be refuted. Thus, someone who thinks that “Mankind has a contribution, but it is not catastrophic” is lumped in with Bill McKibben as a die hard supporter.

This is fallacious. As, by this definition, we can assume that everyone who has never written out and submitted “I do not support genocide.” by default supports the act and is, in fact, in support of such efforts around the world. By my reckoning, 100% of the articles and authors in Powell’s paper support genocide using Powell’s methodology.

If he actually read, processed, and evaluated those almost 25,000 papers mentioning climate change, he would have come off with a giant list of predictions that he could have easily gone through and shown how many have come to pass and how many have not, thus validating or invalidating the hypothesis. He could also have tested the suppositions of those researchers.

But, of course, he didn’t bother doing something useful. He, instead, wants people to convert to believers and thinks that populism will override people evaluating the evidence available to them, no matter their access to research journals, on their own.